The Town of Thorfell Crag #2
She tells herself she is being foolish. Suspicious of every shadow because of everything that has happened. Not every person who looks away is hiding something. Not every face in the crowd is watching her.
Still, as the minutes stretch, and they pass by countless townsfolk, Euphemia starts to doubt Kelda’s true intentions for coming here.
After what feels like hours, Euphemia finally blurts, “We’ve been walking for the better part of the morning, and not once have you introduced me to anyone. What are we doing here, truly?”
As if Kelda had been waiting for this precise moment, a grin curls one side of her face. “You will see soon, little cloud.”
The mystery of it all might’ve infuriated some.
But for Euphemia, it is kindling for her curious mind.
As they finish their descent, she inspects everything. The stalls. The people. The cobblestone roads. The sky. The birds. She searches high and low for some hint as to what it is Kelda might have brought her here for.
By the time they reach the pier, Euphemia has given up hope that she’ll uncover it without Kelda’s explicit aid.
Climbing down a set of wide, sandy steps, Kelda waves over her shoulder to Euphemia. “This way. It’s not much farther now.”
Euphemia does as she’s told and follows Kelda onto a slightly lower tiered path that runs along the shoreline.
A handful of stalls with teal and tan awnings are shoved against the wall-side of the walkway. The people tending them are the sort of folk she would expect to find populating a brig. Covered in scars and filth, they have the kind of shifty gazes that make Euphemia remember she is a noblewoman now.
“Kelda?” Though Euphemia whispers, her voice still hitches. “Should we be down here?”
“This way.” She gives a careless wave of her hand as she leads Euphemia to the final stall.
A robust woman is bent behind the counter, digging into a basket. When she pops back up, in her hands are an assortment of baubles and jewelry, all hastily made and not quite to the standards of the jewelry that a countess would wear.
The woman’s grin is more wolfish than Kelda’s, but there is merriment in her verdant eyes as she throws her arms wide to greet them. “Kelda! I didn’t know you had returned.”
Kelda leans into the embrace and gives the woman a hearty pat on the back. “Two days ago now.”
Euphemia braces herself for the usual marketplace prattle, and she starts to retreat in her mind.
But before she can, the women break apart, and the merchant catches Euphemia’s eye. “I suppose this is the new daughter-in-law, is it?”
Euphemia’s shoulders tense. Despite anticipating an introduction all morning, when none had come, she’d eventually stopped preparing and rehearsing what she would do and say.
She’s momentarily caught off guard.
Fortunately, an alewife’s daughter always knows how to muster a smile. She inclines her head. “I am. My name is Euphemia.”
The woman props her hands on her hips, making her look even more formidable and somehow amplifying her already robust voice. “And a heartfelt welcome to you, Euphemia. Folks around here call me Maryam.”
Euphemia continues smiling, though on the inside she is frantically searching her mind for what she is expected to say next. Fortunately, all she has to do is imagine her sister Cybele, and she finds the inspiration she needs.
“And what is it you do around here, Maryam?”
Maryam beams at the question, though as she looks down at her stall, her smile loses its luster. “Oh, these days, you can find us selling various handmade crafts.”
Euphemia leans over the trinkets, gazing at them with genuine awe. “You made all these?”
“Not these old tumbleweeds.” Maryam holds out her hands, twisting them to show fingers that are as gnarled as driftwood. “That’s what I have the children for. At least that’s what they’re doing until we can get the cooperage back up and running.”
“How is the place holding up?” Kelda asks, reaching into her pocket.
“Oh, about the same. Damn fire keeps catching. The last rain helped put out the last of it, I think. Now it’s just the slow work of cleaning and rebuilding.”
With a grim smile, Kelda retrieves the item. It doesn’t glint like coins as Euphemia expected.
She holds the thing out for Maryam to inspect, and Euphemia recognizes it immediately. A figurine she’d seen in the reliquary, the small stone carving of a beautiful woman draped in a feather cloak.
“What happened?” Euphemia asks, watching Maryam as she shoves the figurine in her coin pouch and disappears under her table for something not displayed.
Her voice is muffled as she answers, “They say it was lightning.”
But Kelda tuts and shakes her head. “Thor would not bring his divine power upon someone as pure as you, Maryam.”
With a disbelieving chuckle, Maryam pops back up, a bundle of leather cupped in her palm. She passes it to Kelda discreetly, Euphemia unable to discern the contents wrapped inside.
It dawns on her then that this is the reason they came today. Not to meet the townspeople. But for whatever is inside that leather bundle.
“Apologies.” Maryam blushes and pats her hands on her skirts. “Here I am, talking your heads off about me, and I haven’t even asked about you. Where is it you said you came from, Euphemia?”
“Nottinghamshire,” she answers swiftly, gaze still snagged on the satchel Kelda is now carefully placing back in her pocket. She forces herself to be polite and turns toward Maryam. “It was about a week’s journey.”
“Oh, yes. I am familiar with Nottinghamshire. Sold a few barrels to a brewer and his family down there. Kind folk. Haven’t heard from him in a while though. Do you by chance know of a Matias in your parts?”
Hearing that name makes the world stop turning.
The waves, once powerful and crashing upon the shore, fall silent.
Everyone on the pier disappears, until it is only Euphemia—Euphemia and the name that belongs to her father.
A name she has not heard in nearly a year.
Euphemia isn’t aware she is falling until Kelda catches her.
Everything else just…becomes fog. The once bright and cheerful day is now shrouded behind a cloak of guilt and shame. Just one more person Euphemia has failed. One more way in which her greatest regret has caused someone else pain.
She’s not aware how they make it back to the carriage, only that they do.
And it isn’t long after the carriage starts to sway that emotional exhaustion claims her, and Euphemia falls into a fitful slumber.